بين مكة وبكين: المسلمون في الصين في ضوء المتغيرات الحديثة

by Maris Gillette (تأليف), شعبان عبدالعزيز عفيفي (ترجمة)

تتناول عالمة الانثروبولوجيا جيليت في هذا الكتاب قومية الهوي المسلمة التي ترجع أصول نشأتها الأولى إلى العرب المسلمين الأوائل الذين استقر بهم المقام في لصين وتزوجوا من الصينيات ووضعوا اللبنات الأولى لتكوين هذه القومية التي تعد أكبر قومية مسلمة في الصين.

وتنطلق من نقطة محورية مفادها أن مسلمي الصين يستخدمون العادات والأنماط والممارسات والأنشطة الاستهلاكية كوسيلة لتأكيد ذواتهم وتأمين مركز أفضل لهم على سلم التطور الذي تتبناه الحكومة الصينية وكدليل على تقبلهم للتحديث.

كما تركز على العادات السائدة في مجتمع الهوي كالعادات الغذائية وأنواع الطعام والملابس.

Genres: Islam, China, Religion

350 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and a half stars would be fairer, but alongside the glittering thesis of Alexander Stewart and the nature of his committed participation in the community he studied (24/7 new Muslim, throwing himself into all the prayers, all the practices, fasting, even a da'wa trip of dubious legality) any ethnographic labour pales everso slightly by comparison!

In the 1990s Gillette spent many months in the Hui Quarter of Xi'an, and using the residents' and the government's overlapping and conflicting discourses of modernization and consumption she illuminates a slice of urban life for this ethnic minority. The Hui are what are often called "Chinese(-speaking) Muslims" but since there are plenty of secularised and openly non-Muslim Hui people, I'll just leave that there for now. She defends well her slightly idiosyncratic choice of "race" as a translation of 民族 (normally "nationality" or "ethnic group"), as a means of drawing attention to the fictive and discriminatory nature of the classification system in China. [There is a pretty big literature on this subject, and one can go much deeper and broader than Gillette does, of course, with works by Dru Gladney, Thomas Mullvaney and James Leibold being particularly illuminating to me, plus Frank Dikotter's classic "The Discourse of Race in Modern China"...]

For an academic work it is super easy to read, and really does a great job of introducing some local history, the sense of space (or lack thereof) in the Hui Quarter, and how people constructed their lives through the pursuit and display of material and symbolic capital. She demonstrates how the residents employed and subverted concepts derived from propaganda to show that they were actually more "modern" and "high-quality" than the Han majority (and if their outcomes were poorer then it was down to discrimination not innate racial differnce), despite the Party's framework of linear evolution with the Han as the front-runner and the Hui (and other minorities) lagging behind. That many of her informants were women is particularly helpful in a field where most published work is by men based on data from mostly male interlocutors. Interestingly, Gillette doesn't make much of the gender angle in this work. In an essay from 2015 she does a bit more with it, but actually finds that Western feminism may not be the most profitable analytical tool for understanding these Hui women and their experiences.

Mosque architecture, Arabic pronunciation, mass-produced foods, what is "halal" for Chinese Muslims (清真 is very much a concept with Chinese characteristics!), anti-alcohol campaigns, wedding gowns and urban rebuilding. It's all here. If there is a flaw it is the slight over-egging of "modernization" as a catch-all concept that Gillette implies drives almost everything that anybody did or planned to do. Sometimes it is not clear how much of this is just her interpretation.

[Ramón · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. As someone who has lived among Chinese Muslims for a short time, I think this is a great introduction to some of the salient aspects of social choices that Hui use to demarcate themselves from the Han majority.

I also like how Gillette examines the interplay between Hui self-valuation with reference to Islam and the tension that creates with the PRC's propaganda of value. She brought new viewpoints to aspects of everyday life that helped create a larger framework for me.

Being limited in its scope to a short window of time with a Hui community in one city, the content is also limited. Gillette does herself credit in not trying to overreach what her research allowed her to conclude. However, for those interested in more in-depth research, this book should be seen as an introduction. Utilize her excellent bibliography to research further.

[Khansa · Rating 4 out of 5]

قد لا أتفق مع المؤلفة في نقطة انطلاقها من الاستهلاك أو ما أطلقت عليه "العنصر" إلا أن الكتاب مثر جدا بالنسبة لي فيما يخص عادات قومية الهوي والتغييرات التي حدثت في مجتمعاتهم منذ 1988 وحتی 1998 وأفكارهم ومواقفهم الاجتماعية مع إرفاق ذلك بصور مختلفة. كما أحببت دخولها بينهم ورصدها لحياتهم اليومية وآرائهم ورؤاهم علی اختلاف توجهاتهم الفكرية (ولا أقول المذهبية) مما أثار لدي الرغبة بزيارة هذه المقاطعة والاطلاع علی آخر التغييرات التي حدثت بعد مرور 15 سنة من تأليف الكتاب :) إلی جانب ذلك أود الإشادة بالترجمة الرائعة.
وددت لو أن المؤلفة تعلمت الإسلام قبل ذهابها لما رأيته من قصور في فهمها لبعض أفعالهم كما يتعلق بالطعام حين لم تفهم لم لم يحرموا الأطعمة الخفيفة المغلفة أو انجذابهم للشرق الأوسط.